Nov 12, 2011

I've always been fascinated by the house. Such a classic, spooky haunted house. I have a vague memory of trick or treating there when I was little. I'm sure it was the highlight of the night.

I walked past the house on the way school on Halloween morning admiring it's creepiness as I often do. But as it turned out, Halloween was a special day for that house. In its window sat a vase full of dead flowers, and peeking out between them, two skulls with huge black petals sprouting from their heads. Next to the eerie arrangement, a carved pumpkin glared out the window with triangular eyes. And I couldn't have been happier. I stood there looking at the Halloweeny window display for a few minutes, transfixed, then went on my way, the house and the pumpkin and the skulls still flashing through my head.

After school, I wrote a small note and popped it in the house's letterbox on the way home. A note of appreciation. I never believed that anyone else in New Zealand cared about Halloween, and it warmed my spooky heart to see that another fellow kiwi had made an effort for the darkest celebration of the year.

On the morning of November 1st, I was on my usual route, very much looking forward to seeing that house and window. I was relieved and excited to see that the decorations were still up. The mailbox was full, and I could see that my weird little note was still sitting in there. They mustn't have collected the mail.

November 2nd, the owner must have read the note, for the mail had been taken in, the decorations were still up, and a new jack o' lantern had appeared on their front porch. It can't have been a coincidence. Halloween had come and gone. There was no second Jack o' Lantern there on November 1st. It wasn't put there for the trick or treaters on that last October night.

It was put there for me.

They had read the note, and being the cool halloweenies that they are, carved one last pumpkin and put it out on the porch. Pretty damn awesome.

The skully flower arrangement and two pumpkins remained there for a few days after Halloween, and when at last they vanished, I stood in front their crumbling picket fence, trying to peer in their window. Through the holes in the torn, stained curtains, I could just make out what must be the living room. And there, on the mantlepiece, a small plastic pumpkin grinned its kitchsy orange grin at me, and I couldn't help but do the same.

Nov 3, 2011

Hundreds of corpses lay only a few feet under the ground. They were piled on top of each other, encased in decayed cloth and dirt. Row after row after row of dessicated corpses, piled up like matches in a matchbox. Among the many rotting bodies, there was movement. The ‘Nachzehrer’ - vampires of German legend. They lay nestled between the dead slowly chewing on their burial shrouds in an attempt to satisfy their unearthly hunger. Tiny shreds of bloody cloth stuck between their cracked teeth, their throats clogged with earth. Their gaunt fingers twitched occasionally. Some of them, finding that they had ingested their entire burial cloth, slowly began to chew on their maggot-ridden lips and tongue, swallowing their own teeth and flesh out of nothing but hungry desperation.

Above ground, there was movement too. A man, centuries old, had seen the undead life as an opportunity. He was a man of evil and malice, the decades of wandering barren fields and dark swamps had twisted his mind into something dark and rotten. He was a Necromancer. His desire for destruction and domination had led him to a hidden mass grave – a grim reminder of the insidious plague that was sweeping Europe. He was not alone, over the years he had gathered a small clan of dedicated minions – mostly large, plague-ridden rats. He had dressed them in tattered cloaks and beaked masks as a cruel parody of the ‘Plague Doctors’. They crouched around him, shrouded in shadows. A few of these strange creatures held flickering lanterns in their quivering hands, throwing shifting light over the forest floor. They were about to bear witness to the birth of a new plague. A plague more vile and virulent than the last. A plague capable of wiping the living right off the earth like dust on a windowsill.

The Necromancer’s plan was perfect. All was in place and the ritual was ready to begin...